The WebM codec is based on VP8, a web technology that Google acquired in February with the acquisition of On2 Technologies, which specialised in video-compression tools. The VP8 codec has been blended with the open source Ogg Vorbis audio format to create a new codec, WebM, which is available for royalty-free use.

Several browser makers, including Mozilla Foundation, which makes Firefox, and Opera Software, have agreed to support the new standard, and Google will build it in to its Chrome browser.

"We think video should be a free and open option for all," Sundar Pichai, Google's vice president of product marketing, told delegates at the Google I/O conference in San Francisco. "It's really important to have high quality and open video."

Google has already started encoding all videos uploaded to YouTube with the new codec, and has released a software development kit to the development community.

There are several competing video technologies in use online, and some require computer users to download and install plug-ins in order to view content. Microsoft and Apple, for instance, use the H.264 encoding standard, which is not royalty-free, while other websites favour Adobe's Flash technology.

Crucially, Adobe has confirmed that it will add support for the WebM codec to its software, which means that computer users browsing the internet using Internet Explorer or Apple's Safari browser will be able to view WebM videos thanks to the Flash plug-ins installed on their machines.